Tag: global consequences

Trump’s attacks on our democracy might just save it. Please, do not be mistaken about any of the arguments I am about to make. I’m sure any positive consequences of this administration are unintentional consequences. Donald Trump is a terrible President, and apparently a fairly twisted person with a bank account for a soul. He is probably the worst businessman on the planet, reportedly wealthy only because he extorted money from a father who must have loved him.

However, it seems that Trump’s meanness, his policies that will hurt the people who worship him most, his racism, his authoritarian disregard for our Constitution and our laws, his love affairs with dictators, his nods at brutality as a strategy to solve problems that should be solved intelligently may be pleasing his peeps who have been turned into “pod people” by tuning in to Fox News to be hammered with propaganda. But his cruelty and dictatorial bent are also having the opposite effect on many Americans and on people in other nations around the world.

American Health Care

People who once squealed about the way the Affordable Care Act became law, and who wanted nothing to do with that health plan will fight to keep it when they are able to understand that Trump and the Republicans want to take it away and replace it with nothing.

American Safety Net Programs

In fact the Republican Party has worked very hard to convince the American people that there are deadbeats all over this nation living well off their tax dollars because of benefits designed to help less fortunate Americans or Americans temporarily experiencing setbacks. But the real endgame here is to end Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, housing subsidies, and welfare (which is almost gone already). Voters who understand this will not reelect Trump.

Smaller Federal Government – State’s Rights

What will the GOP use the freed-up budget dollars from benefit cuts for? That is left somewhat unclear but what this administration says is that they will make the federal government smaller and state governments will be more powerful. If you think that Trump will save benefits for seniors, the disabled, and the poor you are wrong. Trump’s original budget included fairly large cuts to safety net programs and even though all of these cuts did not ‘make the cut’, we recently have learned about the 3 million dollars to be subtracted from the food stamp program. Our benefits are being chipped away. And, having powerful states may sound appealing, but services and even laws will vary from state to state and what seems unfair now will seem punitive for some states if Republicans and Trump have their way. Democrats do not have enough power right now to defeat an all-out attack on our safety net and many states will not be able to afford to offer such benefits.

Immigration and Asylum

We see how the Trump administration treats our neighbors who are leaving their home nations because of threatening gangs and intermittent famine. We understand that they are seeking asylum and a better future in an America that once welcomed immigrants who came here legally. Watching what is happening at our Southern border is already creating a backlash against policies that make us cringe. We have never been a nation that ignored need or inhumane conditions. We have never been a nation that put too many people in one cage with no soap and no toothbrushes, no showers and bad food and then baited people who could not keep themselves clean under such conditions.

This behavior is disgusting and America can never claim this moment as a proud moment in our history. We are an enormous country with only 350 million people. We do not lack the space to show kindness for neighbors under cultural stress. Immigration and asylum could be handled in ways that did not incite shame in one half of America, and hate in the other half (less than half).

Hong Kong

Recently we have watched the people of Hong Kong pour from their homes and businesses in protest against a leader who wanted to send people who reside in Hong Kong who are accused of crimes to mainland China for judgment and punishment under the harsher rules of President Xi, ruler for life, a dictator by another name. They won. The people, for now, successfully pushed back in a show of democratic spirit we do not seem to have found yet in our democracy. Perhaps seeing what Trump was doing in America helped to radicalize them. They have now taken over the airport. Perhaps what they are doing will inspire us

Puerto Rico

Puerto Ricans poured into the streets to protest the behavior of their governor after pages and pages of racist emails were made public and to demand that he leave office. It took days and days but eventually the governor caved and resigned. Perhaps Puerto Ricans realized that America was in no condition to step in and help them at this time and our dilemmas emboldened them to activism. The anger Trump has engendered in the hearts of our Puerto Rican neighbors, who are Americans without a real vote in Congress, by his unfair attacks on their nature helped them perceive of one more string of insults as just too close to home and too over-the-top. Trump’s racism and authoritarianism radicalized them. Right now there are Americans who are being radicalized in support of Trump, but many, quieter, Americans have been radicalized against Trump.

Moscow

Hundreds demonstrated in Moscow for free elections. This has happened before but it could be more important now that American freedoms are being challenged by the Trump administration who is backed by the Republicans in Congress. Freedom seems to gain ground when there is a push to take it away.

America and the Liberal World Order

Ever since the end of World War II our planet has been involved in a tug of war between democracy/capitalism on the one hand as exemplified by America, communism on the other hand as exemplified by first the USSR and now Russia. America fought with funds for modern development, American products, American weapons and tanks and planes, American music and fashion, American technology to persuade the world’s nations to choose democracy over communism. Communists, who could not persuade with glitzy things or money offered things like gas and oil, of which they had plenty, and Russian weapons of war. America began to push a bit too hard and did a few too many regime changes and nations became leery of American “help” and suspicious of American capitalism. The world was beginning to turn a cold shoulder to America and that might help explain the rise of dictatorships around the planet.

Trump, friend of dictators everywhere, seems to be inspiring others around the world to fight harder for freedom and to fight at the grassroots level, a bottom-up movement as opposed to the old top-down approaches. Perhaps people around the world now see America as having more in common with their own situations and the hubris with which we once set out into our international endeavors is now tempered by the humility of being under the tiny thumb of a very unbalanced president with authoritarian and blatantly racist tendencies. Suggesting that anything good will come of having someone like 45 in the Oval Office goes against the grain of my soul and I am not alone in this, but we also know that even the worst ordeals can have some positive outcomes. Keep up the good work people of earth. We will not give into anything or anyone that stands in the way of global prosperity, peace, and tolerance. Trying to end democracy just might save it.